


To Burn or to Fade

by RisingAnarchy



Series: Like The Pearl of Dew [4]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Child Abuse, Depressed Spencer Reid, Depression, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Eating Disorders, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt Spencer Reid, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Mental Health Issues, Protective Aaron Hotchner, References to Depression, Sad, Sad Spencer Reid, Sad with a Happy Ending, Sassy Penelope Garcia, Spencer Reid Whump, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Worried Derek Morgan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:27:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25662826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RisingAnarchy/pseuds/RisingAnarchy
Summary: Stars are born to do two things: to sit in empty space and to die. Rain has one purpose: to cry. In the depth of the night, when the stars are hidden behind linen-looking clouds and the sky deems it a good night for a good cry, both entities find it humorous to call out to their favorite plaything. If only they knew, that in the end, stars always die, and rain always fades.Or; Spencer can no longer bare the weight or guilt and thinks his only way out is to give into death with the slim chance of making it to the stars. The team has other ideas.+ New Alternate Ending
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner & Spencer Reid, Derek Morgan & Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss & Spencer Reid, Jason Gideon & Spencer Reid, Jennifer "JJ" Jareau & Spencer Reid, Penelope Garcia & Spencer Reid, Spencer Reid & David Rossi, Spencer Reid & The BAU Team, Spencer Reid & William Reid
Series: Like The Pearl of Dew [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1828207
Comments: 34
Kudos: 258
Collections: My favorite Criminal Minds works





	1. Star Death

**Author's Note:**

> Whelp... this is the end :) I hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing. Heed the warnings, loves, this one may be especially triggering to some.
> 
> Warnings:  
> -Suicide Attempt  
> -References to Depression/Anxiety  
> -References to Eating Disorders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer succumbs to the voice calling to him from the outside on a lonely night. First, however, he just say goodbye. And that night just be the hardest thing he’s ever had the curse of doing. So, he goes his goodbyes in poorly concealed lies about his boss’ son and watering plants.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last installment of this series... I’m so sad to see it end :( check the End Note for a nice surprise, however! Check out the warnings below, and be safe, my loves!
> 
> Warnings:  
> -Implied Suicide  
> -Suicidal Thoughts  
> -Implied Drug Addiction  
> -Implied Child Abuse

**Part one of To Burn or To Fade**

" _It's better to burn than to fade away." -Neil Young_

Star death. The inevitable demise of a celestial body made up of mostly hydrogen and helium, seems like a rather pitiful thing to be sad about. In fact, it seems even trivial to spend three hours crying into one's pillow over the fact that even brilliant things, such as stars, eventually meet their end. 

Really and truly, the thought of death should not be as terrifying as it was.

It takes billions of years for a star to burn out because even though they are constantly undergoing explosions due to nuclear reactions, it takes eons before they use up all the hydrogen and eventually burn out. And in an odd turn of events, it's there own fault that their life comes to an end as they consistently wear themselves out. It was bound to happen. There was no doubt that eventually, it would be the stars themselves that cause their own downfall.

He doesn't know why it hurts so tremendously to think about the fact that stars die. That they will one day implode in a big, fiery mass of gases before fading away as if they never had existed.

Eaten away from the inside out.

The rain also dies, and for whatever reason, that hurts even worse. The clouds build up with water until they're heavy and sinking and exhausted before letting it all out, cascading down in one dark, looming storm of destruction. Once again, the rain dies due to its own ability to hold on for too long, that when it finally let's go, it is too late. Far, far too late.

Spencer remembers something Gideon had told him once before he faded away, like just another insignificant star in the night sky or messily raindrop against a windowpane.

" _There is no end, but merely new beginnings. You can't keep them from coming, but you can sense them. Like when you flip a page in a book and see how the words stop short of the full page, you know that chapter is over and a new one will start. You can prepare yourself, and you can do all in your power to stop it, but it is inevitable. Either face it head-on or live the rest of your life not knowing what happens next."_

The only problem with this philosophy, Spencer thinks inquisitively, is that the words don't stop halfway down the page. The paragraphs keep repeating, and when he flips the page, the brownish-yellow paper is blank and stained with coffee he doesn't remember spilling.

The future looks bleak. Nonexistent, even.

Logically, he knows that's impossible. The future is only a concept, and there will always be a future, technically. A second from now will be the future, but by the time he even ponders this idea, the second is gone and is now part of the past, when it had once been the present.

It's a depressing thought, really, that he can't see himself getting married or having children.

A formidable, foreboding trench settles itself in his heart, ripping at the sensitive flesh and pinch his veins. Within that darkening canyon, fear tactfully disguises itself as solemness.

Despite his calm demeanor, Spencer is always angry.

Angry at his father, at his mother, at his team. The stars and the rain who refuse to leave him alone, no matter how badly he wishes they would. Most of all, he's angry at himself for being weak, for not doing more with himself while he had the chance. Like curing schizophrenia, or figuring out exactly why his father left him, and fixing himself so no one would ever leave again.

Apparently, he was still working on that last bit, as so far, Elle and Gideon hadn't seen anything in him worth staying for.

When he begins writing letters to Gideon, despite knowing the older man will never answer them, he feels a sense of accomplishment. He starts them all off the same, with big, swooping cursive letters and utterances of 'I love yous' and 'I miss yous', which he felt no shame in expressing. He supposed the repercussions of toxic masculinity and internalized misogyny never grasped him, as he saw nothing bad in telling another man he loved him. Especially when that man was, essentially, a second father to him. If William could even count as the first.

As Spencer wallows in his bed, the duvet tucked under his chin tightly and unmoving, he wonders if a star is dying right above his head.

One was. Actually, many were, but he would never know that.

Many died because they were unable to hold the man's grief as they watched him crack. They soaked up his pain like some twisted sponge, holding on to every humiliating fear and cherishing every time his heart was broken. And the doctor would never know that the rain fell because it was tired of carrying around his baggage... though he had his suspicions.

Life had been feeling repetitive recently.

All throughout his life, Spencer had remembered every word to every article of writing he had ever read. So, when he re-read novels he had first laid eyes on as a child, the spark was rather dull. The genius finds it easier to create his own content to feed his every growing hunger for knowledge, as that was the one thing that made him feel human. That made him feel alive. 

_Dear Jason,_

_Not a day goes by that I don't miss you. Not an hour passes that I don't think of you here next to me, wishing I could feel your presence and your warmth. Not a single second escapes me that I don't wish I had done more to make you stay. I should have handled myself better, to ease your anxieties and help heal your mind, but my selfish thoughts kept me from seeing what my downfall was doing to you. I didn't know it was breaking you, for if I did, I would have helped myself for you rather for myself._

_I never told you this enough, or at all, but I love you. With all my heart and more._

_One day, I hope you will see my letters and know that I didn't want my story to end this way. You always told me to create a new chapter and to do what makes me happy- what makes my story flow. I'm sorry to inform you I think my story will be coming to a close soon._

_Are you disappointed in me? Did you expect better from me? Did you regret taking me under your wing? Was I the reason you left? Did you wish you never met me? Are you upset with how I ended up? Were you upset when you realized I_ _wasn't strong enough to help myself? Do you still love me? Do you think I'm weak? I'd like to think I am, but it's easy to hide thoughts like that, even from highly trained profilers. You know that better than anybody. Hotch keeps telling me that he sees you when he looks into my eyes or some variation of that, and I can't shake that idea. The only difference between you and me is that you stress over mangled corpses, heart-wrenching guilt and the faces of those you couldn't save; I'm haunted, however, by the rain, the stars, bugs, bagels, and that one_ _night when I was younger that shouldn't have shaped my life the way it did._

_It was only one day, after all. Ten measly minutes. That is why I am not afraid to acknowledge myself as weak, for there is no denying it. I flinch at a touch because my father beat me once, and I cry when it rains because I'm afraid the water is watching me._

_Does that make me crazy?_

_Please answer my questions, even if I won't be alive long enough to hear the answer. I find myself rather lost lately, and for the first time in a long time, I'm clueless as to fix it._

_Warmest regards (and with all my love),_

_Spencer Reid._

The letters are never sent out, which makes Spencer's plea for answers rather useless and trivial. He doesn't mention this and hardly thinks about it. The doctor liked to believe that Gideon could read his mind like an open book. He was sure the older man knew what he was thinking, even all the way in the middle of nowhere. Alone.

We are one and the same, Spencer nods to himself as he realizes that he too, is utterly companion-less.

It's on this night, that Spencer finds company with the two forces he had convinced himself he hated. As a light sprinkle of rain trickled down and pooled in his potted plants put on his balcony, he finds himself leaning against the cool glass of his window rather than hiding beneath his duvet, trembling. His petunias, ranging from lovely, faded shades of pinks to pale whites, are not drooping at the stem. They're flooded, that much is sure, but they stand stalk still and tall against the weather, soaking up the water rather than succumbing to its harshness. To its rumors.

Spencer cannot see the stars, as the dim clouds cover the dark sky like a thick blanket, looking oddly like a sheet of ruffled linen. But he knows that they're there, watching him, and for once, he doesn't entirely mind their burning stares.

They care. The stars care. And the rain has been the only thing to stay with him from the moment he was born up until now, which automatically makes it the most loyal entity in his life. He wishes he could hug the rain. To let it hold him close and whisper sweetnesses into his ear as it let droplets of cool water race down his damp hair and across his cheeks.

Spencer opens the door to his balcony and stands at the threshold.

There's still a chance he could end up with the stars, shining brightly behind clouds in the night sky- invisible, but there. That doesn't seem much different from his current reality. The rain is inviting, calling out to him to step under the crying sky and embrace the chill.

_I promise,_ he whispers up into the sky, droplets of water burning his eyes as he stares blankly at the covered stars. Maybe Gideon was up there. That's why he wants to go there so badly- to be with Gideon again. _I promise I'll be back for you._

He had a few calls to make first.

Hotch is first because, for an unknown reason, Hotch is always first. The first one introduced, the first one to speak, the first to comfort, though one could hardly call it that. That's just the way it works- as natural as the games of peek-a-boo the stars play, and as usual as the rain spreading lies with deceitful intent. As natural as blueberry bagels smothered in cream cheese, paired with black coffee.

"Hotchner."

"Hey, Hotch. It's Reid."

The name feels thick on his tongue, like a heavy weight pinning the muscle down as he sluggishly tries to pronounce the word. It nearly feels like a cuss word, which he hardly ever used for this exact reason. It makes him feel dirty. Tainted. Judged.

"Reid? You better have a good reason for calling me so late- er- early. Is everything alright?"

Spencer's glossed over eyes drift to the clock on the table beside his couch, smiling softly as it read 2:04 in black colors. At least it isn't neon green, he thinks softly as images of blurred green and strong British voices assault his mind. He closes his eyes and embraces the phantom pain of William beating on him, punching and kicking him into beautiful unconsciousness. It only happened once, the young genius tells himself. He never once considered that maybe, just maybe, once was enough.

"Yes, everything is fine. Is Jack with you?" The doctor whispers breathlessly, eyes fogging over as he peered at the clock, lost in a memory.

Hotch sighs groggily. "Yes, Reid. Obviously."

"Is he awake?"

"No. Why would he be awake at two in the morning? Hell, why are you awake at two in the morning? We have work tomorrow, you know, and I'd rather you'd not be dead on your feet," The older man shifts and Spencer can hear the duvet crinkle beneath him as he stretches. A groan meets his ears followed by a round of cracks. Hotch's back. "Now, I'll ask once more. Why are you calling me at this time? And why are you asking about Jack?"

Spencer's breathing labors slightly as he stares outside.

"Tell him something for me in the morning. Will you?"

"What is it? Why can't you tell him yourself the next time you see him?"

"It doesn't matter. Just... will you tell him I have a gift for him. A book of magic tricks for him to try out. He always told me how he wanted to learn some but I fear I'm not the greatest teacher. So, just tell him that it's here waiting for him."

The silence following is loud. So impossibly loud, that Spencer just nearly crumbles to his knees in long, horrible sobs from the sheer pain radiating in his skull. Hotch is the expert at silence, the perfect display of how even the quietest of moments can mean more than any word ever spoken. Aaron isn't stupid. He's a profiler, who can tell just by the tone of Spencer's voice that something was wrong. He can't sense when someone has given up, merely by the way they speak. Which is why he puts all his problems to the side for this one moment, straightens his back, now fully awake, and goes into father-mode rather than boss-mode.

"You can bring it over," He says carefully. "Tomorrow, if you'd like. I'm sure he'd be happy to see you."

Spencer smiles. Spencer too, is not stupid.

"That's okay, I wouldn't want to bother you. But you can come whenever you want. I'm sorry for calling you this late, I shouldn't have called at all but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep until I checked this off of my to-do list."

"Wait, Reid, stay on the line for a moment-,"

"I love you, Hotch. I never told you taht enough because it never came up, but I do. I'm sorry, you never get to hear that enough. Goodbye, Aaron. Thank you."

"Spencer!"

When he clicks the end call button, the resounding beep echoes passed his eardrums, and for a split-second, he fears he may have ruptured one. It wasn't anywhere near the pain of the silence, but it was close enough for Spencer to feel his knees buckle beneath him. His heart hurts, physically burns as it pumps his thick blood slowly, oblivious to the fact that in a few short minutes, its job would no longer be needed. The burden would no longer rest on its shoulders. The heart will no longer have to hold Spencer Reid's blood. It will be the concrete's.

Hotch sits up in his bed in complete darkness wondering why Spencer had chosen to say goodbye rather than goodnight.

Garcia follows once Reid has gathered the courage to sit himself down of his sofa so he doesn't kneel over at the next sudden sound. The rain picks up, urging him to hurry so they may take him. A gift to the stars, really. A peace offering. A thank you for holding the clouds up in the sky for so long.

Spencer wonders vaguely, that if he jumps from his balcony, if he may drown if the force of the fall doesn't ultimately kill him.

A painful way to go, without a doubt.

Maybe he deserves it. Maybe he should pick a more torturous way to go, like overdosing, which he shamefully admits he has suffered from before. It's not on record. The stars were sure of that when they denied his fate and forced him to wake up the next day, confused, disoriented, and alive. It hadn't been his time to go, but now, he hopes his timing is right.

It has to be. The rain has been calling out to him all day! Begging! Sobbing! Killing his flowers and beating against his glass to urge him to hurry! Spencer knows the rain likes to lie, but he knows- as he looks out into the dark, cloudy abyss- that for once, they aren't speaking in tongues or spreading false accusations.

It's clear as day. _Come out, Spencer. They don't care anymore- nobody does. You're nothing but a worthless, dirty junkie. A lowly druggie. Your own father didn't love you, how could anybody else? He hit you because it's what you deserve. Do it. End it all._

He fiddles with his phone, fingers twitching over his contacts nervously, wishing he could hold a conversation with his petunias instead.

One glance outside and he realizes they're dead.

"H-H-Hello?" She greets around a yawn.

"Hey, Garcia. It's Reid."

"Listen, baby-cakes, if you aren't bleeding to death, have a gun against your head or black-out drunk, you're going to be in very big trouble tomorrow morning. You interrupted my dream, and let's just say it involved both our very own chocolate Adonis and Johnny Depp. So, do you see how much trouble you'll be in if you can't convince me that... 2:10 is a good time for a phone call?"

Spencer smiles and stupidly thinks that he'll miss her voice. He quickly realizes how valid that sounds, as he will be dead, and won't have the mental ability to remember her. Or anyone, really.

These phone calls are useless. His letters to Gideon are useless.

Taking his life all because he hates the way the stars watch him at night, or how the rain simply must follow him wherever he goes to get dirt on him, seems like a valid reason. It bothers him deep down. An itch that was impossible to scratch. The need to release his body and mind from the constant scrutiny and judgment as it ripped him apart from the inside out. It made his veins feel on fire, spreading ramped across his slowly-thinning body as it ached fruitlessly for relief- which his body knows can be found at the bottom of his sock drawer if he dug far enough). Someone had once said to him, a teacher who was overzealous and a raging (possible) Nazi (Spencer has his suspicions and evidence) that suicide was a selfish, weak thing to do. At that moment, Reid had promised himself that he would never kill himself, less the people in his life only regard him as the pathetic freak that was too inadequate to live past thirty. It had hit him, rather early on, however, that it wouldn't quite matter what others think if he was six feet under while they said such atrocities. Tobias has nearly done that for him years ago. William even earlier...

"I hardly think my reasoning will meet your standards, however... I was thinking about going away for a while to visit my mother and I was wondering if you'd watch over my house plants. They need water four times a week and my Venus flytrap must be fed once a week," Spencer pauses, reminisces about the fact that this silence doesn't threaten to deafen him and then continues. "And I'm sorry about taking you away from Morgan and Johnny Depp."

Garcia groans and slumps back into bed, mumbling obscenities as she sat back up and waddled over to her desk to pull out her calendar.

"Sure, boy-genius. Whatever you want, you shall receive... I'm just a slave to you guys, now. A little servant. Garcia do this! Garcia do that! I'm a queen, Reid, I should be treated as such! Pssh. Whatever. Now, what days, 187?"

Spencer gapes stops breathing and cries.

"Starting tomorrow."

"Okay, tomorrow to..."

"I'm not sure," Spencer whispers as he takes a gander to the outside world, seeing a sky he took great pride in avoiding and droplets of water he desperately wished would leave him alone. Drowning his petunias. He watches as they drown his flowers in a fitful rage, overflowing the pot and screaming with fiery rage for him to hurry up. To get it over with and stop prolonging the inevitable. "All I know is that I'm leaving tonight and I'm not sure when I'll be back."

Garcia stays silent. "Is this about what you said at JJ's? You're- you're leaving us, boy-wonder?"

When she says it like that, the weight of his decisions suddenly hits him like a ton of bricks. He's choosing to leave the small group of stars that hadn't stalked him, or chastised him, or mocked him. They watched, sure, but they ignored and deflected, and most of all, left him alone. Which was all he ever wanted, right? To be felt alone?

_The front door slams shut. Spencer shares a passing glance to his mother, who has taken to the floor in horrible, gut-wrenching sobs. She begs for William to come back, to help her, but he is long gone and never to return._

_The boy doesn't cry._

_He had grown used to the inevitable sense of loneliness, and that doesn't change as his father leaves their small_ _family for bigger and better things. He enjoys the silence, the absence of anything but himself, the way the air felt thinner, the wind was warmer, the world didn't seem as loud, and the stone is his gut seemed to dissolve._

_When he was alone, he was a butterfly._

Ever since he turned eighteen, and he was indefinitely and utterly alone with his mother gone, he was no longer the beautiful, vibrant winged creature. He was a Blister Beetle, stuck on it's back, and unable to threaten predators with his bright colors. But he liked the loneliness, right? Didn't he like to be ignored?

"I-I'm sorry, Garcia. I really am."

"No," She cries, and the younger male can practically see the glistening tears rolling down her plump cheeks. "No, you're just like Gideon. Like Elle and Emily. How could you? I thought you were stronger than them, Spencer! You are! How could you leave us?!"

"Because I'm in pain!"

It's quiet as the night and Garcia whispers that she's on her way over, realization dawning over her as she shuffled around her room. The time now against him, Spencer panics and is frightened that he may not be able to say all his goodbyes by the time the night ends.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. Stay right where you are, boy-genius, and I'll be right over. Shit! I should call Morgan or Hotch or- dammit, just stay where you are, cupcake, okay?"

"Garcia," But she's rambling, mumbling to herself as she gathers her keys and slips into some slippers and promised she'll be around soon. Spencer thinks, quite humorlessly, that he now has a technical genius and a stubborn FBI agent hot on his trail, and time is dwindling. The second tick by slowly, but he knows if he stalls any longer, his plans will go down the drain and any chance he has of sleeping with the stars will escape him. "Penelope! Stop! I'm fine, alright? I'm perfectly okay. I'm not doing... that, I'm just going awhile for awhile. I'd never leave you guys."

"How many times will you lie to them, Spencer?" Gideon's voice echoes through the moth space between his ears. "How much more pain will you put them through all because of your own, selfish needs?"

Spencer resists the urge to cuss out his former mentor's phantom voice and finally allows slight trembles to take over his body. He is reduced to nothing but a weak, stick-thin ten-year-old, laying in a fetal position on his living room carpet. His father's blows rain down on him, each one sparking a pain far to familiar from his torturous days of school, where he was seen as more of a punching bag than a fellow student. Hopeless. At the mercy of those who were bigger than him- no, not bigger. Stronger.

"No, no! I may not be a profiler, Spencer Reid, but I'm not stupid!"

A fire erupts in Spencer's heart, vibrant and hot. All pain and curse words and punching walls. Magma-filled rage spewing from deep within until it threatened to overflow shamelessly.

_I have approximately twenty minutes,_ the young genius things bitterly, that was if Hotch was already on his way. Ten, give or take, if Penelope decided to come too.

"You sure about that, Penelope? Last time I checked you couldn't tell the difference between a technical agent and a grown woman with the brain of a six-year-old! You don't know me! Don't act like you do."

Garcia's silence isn't the same as Hotch's. It isn't deafening. In fact, it's quiet and calm with a vexed underbelly. It's not worse, but he feels like maybe it should be.

"You know what... screw you. I'm just trying to help you, Spencer! And this is what I get?"

Spencer sneers, but his anger has finished to a guilty throb. "Maybe that's a sign that you should stop trying to help. I don't want it."

"Then I guess there's nothing I can do. Is there, genius?"

"I guess not."

That's all technical analyst Penelope Garcia needs before she ends the call and goes back to bed, throwing her keys to the ground and ripping her calendar in half. She collapses on her bed, covers her head with her duvet and screams a horrible wail more similar to a banshee's than a human's. She was used to feeling useless, all those days she spends in her lot while her family is in harm's way, risking their lives while she can do nothing but wait for their phone calls. But this was a whole new feeling. This was despair.

Spencer Reid, on the other hand, puts his head in his hands and plans his next call.

Time is of the essence, and he can't waste it wallowing over things that won't matter once he's gone.

JJ doesn't answer her phone, and that doesn't bother Spencer.

He can imagine her in bed, snuggled against Will in matching pajamas with Henry nestled in between them because he was afraid of the monster under his bed. In a way, so is Spencer. That's why he spends so many days cooped up under his comforter, knowing he couldn't outrun the monster if he got up- his exhaustion and weakness getting the better of him. He'd be caught and dragged beneath the bed in an instant to be consumed. Anyways, he imagines her and her husband and beautiful child cocooned together, belonging to one another. Being a part of one another.

Spencer wonders if he belonged to someone, and just didn't know it.

His mother, perhaps.

Rossi answers, but it's painfully obvious that he's drunk out of his mind on age-old wine and it doesn't fail to bring a smile to Spencer's face.

"You're a great person, Rossi. You know that?" The young doctor says through a chuckled-turned-sob.

"Of course I do!" The older profiler slurs. "I practically invented great people. Did you know that, kid? Betcha didn't. Look at me, David- fucking- Rossi has Spencer Reid stumped. Go me, bitch!"

"I love you. Did you know that? You helped me move passed Gideon," In actuality, the Italian's arrival had broken Reid's heart. It meant that everything had been real, in the end. The stars took Gideon away from him in a cruel, heinous act of selfishness. He was washed away with the rain, the sleet and the snow... just like William. "And when I was sad, you'd invite me over for dinner and made me feel like u belonged. Like I wasn't some failure who deserved-... deserved to be beaten by their dad. To be drugged against his will. To feel so hopeless that the only escape is death."

"Gideon, Smideon," He teased. "I'm the superior profiler, dammit! Oh, fuck. The pasta's all burnt. Shit, ah man. Ah, jeez."

"Goodbye, Rossi."

"Suck my-"

Spencer hangs up with a bitter laugh and throw his phone so hard, it shatters into hundreds of pieces, glass and plastic shining mockingly under the faded moonlight. Like little stars dotting the night sky, they stare at him, and Spencer realized that he no longer can find refuge in his own home. They've infiltrated his comfort zone. They've taken away his only outlet to speak with Prentiss or Morgan one last time.

Oh, Emily. He wanted to apologize to her, for taking out his drug-induced anger on her. For sneering at her and wishing death upon her in his darkest of times. Though, to be fair, he had those thought about everyone at one pint or another.

He had been drifting away from her lately, choosing to deny her requests for him to come over for a Star Wars marathon, wine and expensive chocolates. You didn't need it, a little voice whispers, and he knows it's the wind coming in through the seems in his window panes. You needed the dilaudid. It worked, didn't it? You don't need anyone. They hate you. Once a drug addict, always a drug addict.

That's right, Spencer trembles and leans over until he's laying on his couch, knees brought up to form the smallest of balls to protect himself from the whispering wind, the apathetic rain and the stalking stars.

He wishes he were a butterfly again, so he could fly away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m working on a new story that is multi-charter! It is partially a casefic (which are surprisingly hard to write) and won’t be written exactly the same as this one. But few free to read once it’s published, I’d you’d like. You hav wall been amazing to me, you should all be proud of yourselves for being such kind human beings. Thank you! 
> 
> Feel free to comment, leave kudos and save for later. Lots of love- Lara <3


	2. Fall to Wither to Scorn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer’s biggest regret was listening to things that weren’t there and ignoring the those right in front of him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter of the entire series! I’m sad to see it end :( but, there is more to come soon enough. Heed the warnings, please, and be safe!
> 
> Warnings  
> -Suicide Attempt  
> -Referenced Eating Disorder  
> -Referenced Depression/Mental Illness  
> -Implied Drug Addiction

**Part Two of: To Burn or to Fade**

" _Everything's going to be fine in the end. If it's not fine, it's not the end." -Oscar Wilde_

“ _What would you like to drink?" William's voice was quiet and groggy, as it always was in the early mornings when he had yet to have his cup of coffee. His full eyes fluttered towards his son, who was reading a rather large novel at the breakfast nook, completely oblivious to the world. The older man shook his head and considered dropping by at the local convenience store for a sports magazine later that evening. Maybe Spencer would read that instead. "Spencer, did you hear me?"_

" _Huh?!" The boy jumped. William always wondered why his boy was so skittish, but couldn't care enough to pry. Probably because of those bruises, he thinks as his eyes steer away from his boy's black eye. Or, whomever gave him those bruises, rather. "S-Sorry. What did you say?"_

_"I was asking what you'd like to drink?"_

_Spencer mulled over his for a moment, looking towards his father's face but not meeting eyes._

_"Chocolate milk?"_

_William sighed but nodded. "Alright. How about you bring your mother breakfas_ t, _yeah?"_

_William didn't like to look at his wife. Not since she fell off the deep end. Whenever his lifeless eyes gazed down upon her emaciated, pale body, he felt guilt clawing at his heart that constricts his lungs until he can't breathe. She had been so beautiful... she still was... in another lifetime._

" _Okay."_

_Spencer carefully grabs at the plate containing his dearest mother's food- buttered toast and an egg- and even takes his chances at grabbing a glass of water._

_"Be careful," William stresses. "You know how clumsy you are."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"That's probably why you can't hit a t-ball for shit," He mutters under his breath once Spencer has reached the doorway. He doesn't glance back to see if Spencer heard him, and he can't find himself to care either. The boy did, but he ignored the comment in favor of_ _visiting the one person in his life that made it worth living. William Reid, who was still pondering whether or not he should even try to fix his son, pours the boy a glass of chocolate milk and drinks the rest straight from the gallon without a second thought. A few muffled shouts and the resounding sound of glass breaking causes him to sputter._

_Spencer returns, looking worse for wear, and sits back down with his book, eyes wide and terrified._

" _Thank you," He whispers when the elder Reid places the milk in front of him._

_"What happened?"_

_"She wouldn't eat it. Thought it was poisoned."_

_William just nods and goes back to the countertop, waiting for the coffee maker to spill its contents into his awaiting mug. He sighs and holds his head in his hands, elbows resting on the edge of the counter. "Are you eating breakfast?"_

" _No," And he never does. "Are you okay?"_

_William wants to say how his ten-year-old child shouldn't be asking his forty-six-year-old father if he's okay. It should be the other way around. Instead, he curses Spencer for being so benevolent and uncaring of himself. Because, no, William isn't okay, but neither is Spencer. Neither is Diana. The only difference is that Spencer doesn't resent his father for being neglectful or hating him, nor does he hate his mother for accusing him of horrible things or throwing glass at him_. _William resents his son for existing- for being intelligent and having a personality. He resents Diana because she can't control herself._

_"No, Spencer. I'm not okay. Drink your milk, I have to head out to work. Make sure your mother eats something."_

_"Y'know... studies show that speaking with someone about your mental-"_

" _Shut up, Spencer! Just. Shut. Up. No one asked for you to speak, and no one wants to listen to you drone on. You're such a freak. Why can't you just be normal?"_

_"I-I'm sorry."_

_"Don't even."_

_With a passing glance, William catches the cover of the book his son is reading_ , _and knows it will be a long day for the two of them. He shuts the front door, unaware to the fact that later on that evening, it would rain, and Diana's flowers wouldn't be the only thing falling apart. Spencer still reads the book, sixteen years later._

_'The Whole-Brain Child: Twelve Revolutionary Strategies to Raise a Good Son'_

Surprisingly, it's neither Garcia nor Hotch that make it to him in time.

Emily stalks up behind him from his place on the balcony, vacant eyes glaring at the concrete ground beneath him. The ground that would soon embrace him in a cold hug, taking him from the living world and depositing him up with the stars.

"Reid?" He turns to her, looks her up and down, and then looks back outside, relishing in the rain as it ran down his face. Spencer doesn't pay attention to the sound of the front door opening or his remaining teammates rushing through. Rossi is sober, Hotch is dressed, Garcia is crying, Morgan looks thoroughly fucked- for lack of better term- and JJ looks exhausted. That leaves Spencer, who is soaking wet and wondering, quite comically, if this is how his mother petunias had felt all those years ago as the drowned in the one thing that was meant to make them thrive. "Spencer, what are you doing out there? Can you come inside for me- for us?"

Why would he want to? He's finally accepted that his place is out here with the rain. They judged him, and mocked him and laughed when he was in pain, but at least they were there.

"'You're such a freak, Spencer. Why can't you just be normal?' I don't know. I don't know why I can't 'just be normal.' For once, I don't know."

"You aren't a freak, Spencer," Prentiss' voice doesn't waver, for she is the master at concealing her emotions. A female Hotch with a funny bone, Spencer muses. "Why would you ever think that?"

Hotch takes his place at the front of the boat, the leader he is, and doesn't even flinch when Prentiss moves to be level with him. Even in a drastic moment like this, she longs to be treated as an equal with her male counterparts, which is something Spencer takes notice of right away. Evidence that they didn't care, or at least she didn't. Too concerned with being the hero; the one that saved the day, the one knew their worth, the one who was looked up to. The kid can't even blame them, on the end. He remembers, quite distinctively, something a professor told him once before when Reid had taken it upon himself to ask why, exactly, they hadn't gotten their exam scores back yet.

" _The world doesn't revolve around you, Mr. Reid. And no- I won't bother calling you doctor. You're hardly an adult. Anyways, I have a life outside of this job, and I won't waste my precious down-time grading a fifteen-year-olds chicken scratch. I have my own problems. Deal with it, kid. The world is cruel."_

If that were true, Spencer thinks, than why would they take the time to come visit him in his time of need?

The youngest doesn't answer.

He's to busy conversing with otherworldly figures, hoping they would beckon him so he knows he was wanted in whichever place they chose to put him. Would they welcome him? Or would they be cold like the team, ignoring him any chance they got? Spencer still wonders why some days Morgan doesn't show up for breakfast, or why he never urges the younger man to eat a bagel. He never had an excuse. Surely it was simply because he didn't want to be there. Perhaps Derek was growing tired of his "friend". Yes, Spencer thinks, that has to be it.

"Reid," Hotch's voice is level, yet heavy with sleep. "Remember what I told you? You're father was wrong."

Spencer resists the urge to smile. A bitter, heartbroken smile. The ache in his heart doesn't lessen as Hotch's calm voice enters hie mind through his ears. A melody, but not a song. A piano key, but not a note. The world blurs around in a flurry of shapes and colors, all dull, round and lifeless. Life had succumbed to darkness and despondency. In fact, life had worsened so considerably, so drastically, the young doctor could only describe it as being a flightless bird.

He accepts that he has no wings. He hides it, but deep down, he doesn't deny it because it is so blatantly obvious that he has no wings though every bird around him does. But no one wants to openly admit that their wings are no good. Don't get it twisted. His wings hadn't always been so bent, broken and splintered. They hadn't always been nonexistent. But his broken wings had been a quiet presence for awhile now. He ignored it, for the most part, but he always found himself losing more feathers.

Spencer's wings are not good wings- they are far from such- but he disguises them.

For the other's sake.

No one wants to know how helpless someone feels. How utterly alone and disconsolate someone is at the end of the day, when they hang up their hates and coats and toe off their work shoes. Hardly anyone wants to lay awake at night thinking of someone else's sadness, abandonment or quietus. Because after awhile, all that pain and anger sleeps through their skin and enters their bloodstream. That leaves two milked, exhausted people aching for the curtains to finally close.

Flightless birds can't fly in the rain, but Spencer doesn't think about this fact, or that no matter how hard he tried, his friends stayed up all might thinking about him.

About how not... him, he had been recently.

"He couldn't have been wrong," The boy whispers. "Sixteen years later and I can't... get it out of my head. That has to stand for something, right? It has to mean something to have stuck with me for so long. I-I'm just tired of hearing it everyday and knowing that's there's- that there's no way for me to know if it's true or not."

"It isn't," Hotch assures, but one glance and Spencer knows he's just as flightless as the younger- hardly qualifies to give advice about such things. "Nothing he said was true."

"Including the few times he said he loved me."

Especially those times.

Morgan, who had obviously been interrupted in the midst of his nightly festivities with a random (and possibly intoxicated) woman, looks so lost, that Reid almost feels bad. The gully almost sweeps him off his feet and throws him over the chest itself. And right there and then, he contemplates stepping away from the balcony and back into the safety of his family. He doesn't. It's the thought that counts.

"He's in the past, Reid," Derek says, and with the twitch of his arms, it's obvious that he longs to snatch Spencer from the edge. "Everything he said- no matter what- doesn't matter anymore. Okay, kid? It's just us. You and me."

"It isn't, though," The genius says surely. "Why did you ignore me when I was taking dilaudid? Why didn't you try to stop me? I would have given anything for one of you, any of you, to step in and tell me to stop. I would have, you know. If any of you had told me, I would have stopped that second."

"You know we couldn’t have said anything," Hotch sounds stern. Like a boss. A leader. It hurts the boy's heart because for a brief moment there, he thought that maybe they were friends here, not coworkers. And his naive, little heart told him that they were conversing like a family. How stupid was he, really, to believe in such juvenile things when nothing but "family" had let him down his entire life. "If we had made it a big deal you would have been fired on the spot and Strauss would have known immediately. We thought keeping everything on the down-low would help you."

"But that's just the thing!" Spencer teeters his back over the railing. Penelope's gasp nearly sends him over the edge. "It was a big deal! It should have been dealt with as if it were a big deal!"

"Spence," JJ, who should be in bed with her with husband and child, begins to cry. "We were just looking out for your job-"

"I rather lose my job than die. And let me tell you, I got pretty close."

You went to far, his mind supplies solemnly. You told them to much. Now they think you're nothing but an insane, suicidal, freak-show. Way to go, genius. Blaming them for your addiction. That's just like you, though, isn't it? You blame your father for your mother going off the deep end, Tobias for being Gideon's last straw, your bullies for making you hate your life and your mother for depriving you as a child. In reality, it was all you. They had a reason to leave, to beat you, to hate you.

"I was always the common denominator," Spencer whispers to himself with tearful eyes. "I did this to myself."

"Did what to yourself?" JJ whispers and Spencer can hardly hear her over the roar of thunder and incoming rain pelting against his fragile skin. Calling to him- jump, Spencer, please.

"All of this. I'm so sorry."

_How could I have ever even thought to blame you all when the evidence was so clearly presented? It was me the whole time._

He leans forward, feels his feet raise of the ground as a weightless sentiment takes over him, drowning him in dense air and dragging him to the lowest depths of nothingness. Open space among a forest of burning trees.

And in that moment, he feels nothing but the rain trickling down his nose and the luminous glow of the stars gleaming down at him with buggy eyes. He knows somewhere, a child is stepping on a bug as if it's life meant nothing more than a pebble, and in the deep crevices of a local cafe, that too-thin girl is eating a blueberry bagel for first time in three years because she didn't like the way her teeth began to rot and her hair had nearly all fallen out. She even added cream cheese, because her blackening fingernails were sickening to look at. Somewhere, the sun is showing its face and someone is looking up at it, not at all bothered by it's yellow rays striking down at them. In a far off place, a bird's broken wings are being mended by someone who cared enough to stop when they heard it's helpless chirps.

Spencer knows somewhere- anywhere- a mother is planting flowers with her son and a father is kissing his child goodnight. Saying he loved them, and meaning it. But Spencer still falls.

And he regrets it.

Someone's arms are around him, pulling him back and into a dark, warm pillow of muscles. The arms don't lessen their grip, even as he is dragged inside like a worthless corpse and sat up on his couch, his shattered phone mere feet away. His dark, faded eyes meet glossy, wide one's that remind him of his father's. Exhausted.

Morgan's hands are on his cheeks, keeping his head upright so he has no choice but to look into the older's man's eyes.

Garcia's sobs echo in the background. They sound like Diana's.

Emily is gripping one of his hands while Rossi takes his other, ever silent through the whole ordeal, but not detached. Concerned, because he had never felt such impuissance before in his life, watching his youngest friend slip from his balcony to meet his demise. On purpose. He hadn't been there for Hankle, but he was there after, and Reid wonders why it took him so long to realize that that was enough in the end. Hotch takes his place behind Morgan, for ten first time in his life, and doesn't even try to hide his worry or his tears. JJ and Garcia grip each other with fury, hands shaking and eyes spewing salty tears.

"I'm sorry," Spencer whispers. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

"Shh," The man in front of him shushes. "It's okay, it's okay. Just calm down for me, alright. You can do it, just breathe."

Painful, lung-wrenching sobs escape his lips as his face forms an ugly expression of remorse. His mouth forms a wonky 'o', wide and toothy as his eyes wrinkle at the corners. Soaking wet from head to toe, he looks like a character from The Notebook, but far more lonely. The boy places his hands over Derek's, holding them there's as he shakes and shuttered with pent-up wails from years of holding down his pain. His body contorts horribly, back arching as his legs climb toward his chest, feet crossed as he class apart in front of his closest friends. Something he would usually see as humiliating, and yet the only thing he can feel was regret and the overwhelming sense that he needs to apologize. Because it isn't fair for him to do such a thing to his friends...

When they have better things to worry about.

"No," He wheezes. "No, I-I-I'm sorry, I'm s-oh-sorry. I didn't want it. I did-didn't wa-ha-ant it. Ne-eh-ver. Please. P-ha-lease, believe me. I-I'm not crazy, no-not... sorry, I'm sorry."

"No one thinks your crazy," Hotch says softly. "I'm sorry, Spencer. We all let you down."

"No- no. Don't let me g-oh-o. Don't le-let me go. Please."

Morgan's hands are tighter around his face, squeezing against his protruding cheekbones as his thumbs wipe away his younger brother's tears feverishly. Gently, they swipe beneath his eyes and over his darkening eye bags, ashamed that he hadn't stepped in sooner.

"We won't," Prentiss assures quietly.

"Never again, kiddo," Rossi runs his thumb along Spencer's knuckles. "I promise. Never again."

That night, Spencer doesn't feel better. The urge to throw himself in front of a speeding train, or pump himself full of drugs is still there. And the outside world is still whispering for him to come closer, to step off the edge and let himself get take so the pain could finally go away. He hardly has enough energy to move as he is stuffed on the couch surrounded by his team, squeezing him warmly in a group hug he didn't know he needed. The world still turns dreadfully slow, and when the next morning rolls around, the doctor will still feel the same darkness.

Because things like this cannot be fixed in a day.

He stills struggles to eat bagels, or anything in the like. Bread, pasta, cookies, cake, ice cream and many, many more delicacies he can't even think about without breaking down in tears. And some days, he'll be too exhausted to get up and shower or brush his teeth. His hair will turn to knots and his stomach will shrink. The room he spends most of his time in will become filthy and riddled with dirty clothes and dishes he doesn't bother to clean. Most nights, he'll stare up at the stars and wonder why they were so cruel. The rain will come and he'll curse it for killing his mother's flowers all those years ago.

It isn't the end, as it was hardly the beginning, but this time, he has the one thing on his side that he hadn't since the day he was born.

A family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m so sad to see this end, but you all have been so supportive that I never wanted to stop writing :) So, once again, I thank you all for being amazing people and being kind to me. It warms my heart and fills me with happiness to no extent. I have a few one-shots I have planned to post soon, as well as a multi-chapter fic that we originally self-indulgent. I hope you all enjoy it when it comes out! Quite disclaimer, lots of Spencer’s thoughts in this series were based on my own experience with mental illness, so if it isn’t the same to yours to someone you know, don’t judge. It’s just my experience that I based it off of. I love you all undeniably! Stay safe and healthy, my loves! :)
> 
> Feel free to comment, leave kudos and save for later! Lots of love- Lara <3


	3. Flightless Birds and Empty Stems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer's biggest regret was listening to things that weren't there and ignoring what was right in front of him. His second biggest regret is realizing all too late that blame was not something to be passed around when the person holding it knows who it belongs to. 
> 
> !!ALTERNATE ENDING CHAPTER!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, everyone! I couldn’t resist writing a little alternate ending for this series for all of you who take your love for angst to the extreme. I’m one or those people by the way! Anyways, this chapter is extremely similar to the last one up until a certain point, and while I don’t suggest skipping the first part, you technically can if you have read the last chapter. Please enjoy and heed the warnings! Be safe, my loves!
> 
> Warnings:  
> -Suicide  
> -Suicidal Thoughts  
> -Implied/Referenced Drug Abuse  
> -Implied/Referenced Eating Disorder  
> -Minor Blood/Gore  
> -Religious Implications/References
> 
> Disclaimer: I am an atheist. Nothing written should offend anyone of any faith, but if it does, please express so in the comments and I will address it. Thank you! :) and I mean no harm whatsoever. I love everyone!

**Part Three of: To Burn or To Fade**  
_  
“Not to spoil the ending for you, but everything is going to be okay.” -Author’s Note (Poem)_

“ _What would you like to drink?" William's voice was quiet and groggy, as it always was in the early mornings when he had yet to have his cup of coffee. His full eyes fluttered towards his son, who was reading a rather large novel at the breakfast nook, completely oblivious to the world. The older man shook his head and considered dropping by at the local convenience store for a sports magazine later that evening. Maybe Spencer would read that instead. "Spencer, did you hear me?"_

" _Huh?!" The boy jumped. William always wondered why his boy was so skittish, but couldn't care enough to pry. Probably because of those bruises, he thinks as his eyes steer away from his boy's black eye. Or, whomever gave him those bruises, rather. "S-Sorry. What did you say?"_

_"I was asking what you'd like to drink?"_

_Spencer mulled over his for a moment, looking towards his father's face but not meeting eyes._

_"Chocolate milk?"_

_William sighed but nodded. "Alright. How about you bring your mother breakfas_ t, _yeah?"_

_William didn't like to look at his wife. Not since she fell off the deep end. Whenever his lifeless eyes gazed down upon her emaciated, pale body, he felt guilt clawing at his heart that constricts his lungs until he can't breathe. She had been so beautiful... she still was... in another lifetime._

" _Okay."_

_Spencer carefully grabs at the plate containing his dearest mother's food- buttered toast and an egg- and even takes his chances at grabbing a glass of water._

_"Be careful," William stresses. "You know how clumsy you are."_

_"Yes, sir."_

_"That's probably why you can't hit a t-ball for shit," He mutters under his breath once Spencer has reached the doorway. He doesn't glance back to see if Spencer heard him, and he can't find himself to care either. The boy did, but he ignored the comment in favor of_ _visiting the one person in his life that made it worth living. William Reid, who was still pondering whether or not he should even try to fix his son, pours the boy a glass of chocolate milk and drinks the rest straight from the gallon without a second thought. A few muffled shouts and the resounding sound of glass breaking causes him to sputter._

_Spencer returns, looking worse for wear, and sits back down with his book, eyes wide and terrified._

" _Thank you," He whispers when the elder Reid places the milk in front of him_

_  
"What happened?"_

_"She wouldn't eat it. Thought it was poisoned."_

_William just nods and goes back to the countertop, waiting for the coffee maker to spill its contents into his awaiting mug. He sighs and holds his head in his hands, elbows resting on the edge of the counter. "Are you eating breakfast?"_

" _No," And he never does. "Are you okay?"_

_William wants to say how his ten-year-old child shouldn't be asking his forty-six-year-old father if he's okay. It should be the other way around. Instead, he curses Spencer for being so benevolent and uncaring of himself. Because, no, William isn't okay, but neither is Spencer. Neither is Diana. The only difference is that Spencer doesn't resent his father for being neglectful or hating him, nor does he hate his mother for accusing him of horrible things or throwing glass at him_. _William resents his son for existing- for being intelligent and having a personality. He resents Diana because she can't control herself_

_"No, Spencer. I'm not okay. Drink your milk, I have to head out to work. Make sure your mother eats something."_

_"Y'know... studies show that speaking with someone about your mental-"_

" _Shut up, Spencer! Just. Shut. Up. No one asked for you to speak, and no one wants to listen to you drone on. You're such a freak. Why can't you just be normal?"_

_"I-I'm sorry."_

_"Don't even."_

_With a passing glance, William catches the cover of the book his son is reading_ , _and knows it will be a long day for the two of them. He shuts the front door, unaware to the fact that later on that evening, it would rain, and Diana's flowers wouldn't be the only thing falling apart. Spencer still reads the book, sixteen years later._

_'The Whole-Brain Child: Twelve Revolutionary Strategies to Raise a Good Son'_

Surprisingly, it's neither Garcia nor Hotch that make it to him in time.

Emily stalks up behind him from his place on the balcony, vacant eyes glaring at the concrete ground beneath him. The ground that would soon embrace him in a cold hug, taking him from the living world and depositing him up with the stars.

"Reid?" He turns to her, looks her up and down, and then looks back outside, relishing in the rain as it ran down his face. Spencer doesn't pay attention to the sound of the front door opening or his remaining teammates rushing through. Rossi is sober, Hotch is dressed, Garcia is crying, Morgan looks thoroughly fucked- for lack of better term- and JJ looks exhausted. That leaves Spencer, who is soaking wet and wondering, quite comically, if this is how his mother petunias had felt all those years ago as the drowned in the one thing that was meant to make them thrive. "Spencer, what are you doing out there? Can you come inside for me- for us?"

Why would he want to? He's finally accepted that his place is out here with the rain. They judged him, and mocked him and laughed when he was in pain, but at least they were there.

"'You're such a freak, Spencer. Why can't you just be normal?' I don't know. I don't know why I can't 'just be normal.' For once, I don't know."

"You aren't a freak, Spencer," Prentiss' voice doesn't waver, for she is the master at concealing her emotions. A female Hotch with a funny bone, Spencer muses. "Why would you ever think that?"

Hotch takes his place at the front of the boat, the leader he is, and doesn't even flinch when Prentiss moves to be level with him. Even in a drastic moment like this, she longs to be treated as an equal with her male counterparts, which is something Spencer takes notice of right away. Evidence that they didn't care, or at least she didn't. Too concerned with being the hero; the one that saved the day, the one knew their worth, the one who was looked up to. The kid can't even blame them, on the end. He remembers, quite distinctively, something a professor told him once before when Reid had taken it upon himself to ask why, exactly, they hadn't gotten their exam scores back yet.

" _The world doesn't revolve around you, Mr. Reid. And no- I won't bother calling you doctor. You're hardly an adult. Anyways, I have a life outside of this job, and I won't waste my precious down-time grading a fifteen-year-olds chicken scratch. I have my own problems. Deal with it, kid. The world is cruel."_

If that were true, Spencer thinks, than why would they take the time to come visit him in his time of need?

The youngest doesn't answer.

He's to busy conversing with otherworldly figures, hoping they would beckon him so he knows he was wanted in whichever place they chose to put him. Would they welcome him? Or would they be cold like the team, ignoring him any chance they got? Spencer still wonders why some days Morgan doesn't show up for breakfast, or why he never urges the younger man to eat a bagel. He never had an excuse. Surely it was simply because he didn't want to be there. Perhaps Derek was growing tired of his "friend". Yes, Spencer thinks, that has to be it.

"Reid," Hotch's voice is level, yet heavy with sleep. "Remember what I told you? You're father was wrong."

Spencer resists the urge to smile. A bitter, heartbroken smile. The ache in his heart doesn't lessen as Hotch's calm voice enters hie mind through his ears. A melody, but not a song. A piano key, but not a note. The world blurs around in a flurry of shapes and colors, all dull, round and lifeless. Life had succumbed to darkness and despondency. In fact, life had worsened so considerably, so drastically, the young doctor could only describe it as being a flightless bird.

He accepts that he has no wings. He hides it, but deep down, he doesn't deny it because it is so blatantly obvious that he has no wings though every bird around him does. But no one wants to openly admit that their wings are no good. Don't get it twisted. His wings hadn't always been so bent, broken and splintered. They hadn't always been nonexistent. But his broken wings had been a quiet presence for awhile now. He ignored it, for the most part, but he always found himself losing more feathers.

Spencer's wings are not good wings- they are far from such- but he disguises them.

For the other's sake.

No one wants to know how helpless someone feels. How utterly alone and disconsolate someone is at the end of the day, when they hang up their hates and coats and toe off their work shoes. Hardly anyone wants to lay awake at night thinking of someone else's sadness, abandonment or quietus. Because after awhile, all that pain and anger sleeps through their skin and enters their bloodstream. That leaves two milked, exhausted people aching for the curtains to finally close.

Flightless birds can't fly in the rain, but Spencer doesn't think about this fact, or that no matter how hard he tried, his friends stayed up all might thinking about him.

About how not... him, he had been recently.

"He couldn't have been wrong," The boy whispers. "Sixteen years later and I can't... get it out of my head. That has to stand for something, right? It has to mean something to have stuck with me for so long. I-I'm just tired of hearing it everyday and knowing that's there's- that there's no way for me to know if it's true or not."

"It isn't," Hotch assures, but one glance and Spencer knows he's just as flightless as the younger- hardly qualifies to give advice about such things. "Nothing he said was true."

"Including the few times he said he loved me."

Especially those times.

Morgan, who had obviously been interrupted in the midst of his nightly festivities with a random (and possibly intoxicated) woman, looks so lost, that Reid almost feels bad. The gully almost sweeps him off his feet and throws him over the chest itself. And right there and then, he contemplates stepping away from the balcony and back into the safety of his family. He doesn't. It's the thought that counts.

"He's in the past, Reid," Derek says, and with the twitch of his arms, it's obvious that he longs to snatch Spencer from the edge. "Everything he said- no matter what- doesn't matter anymore. Okay, kid? It's just us. You and me."

"It isn't, though," The genius says surely. "Why did you ignore me when I was taking dilaudid? Why didn't you try to stop me? I would have given anything for one of you, any of you, to step in and tell me to stop. I would have, you know. If any of you had told me, I would have stopped that second."

"You know we couldn’t have said anything," Hotch sounds stern. Like a boss. A leader. It hurts the boy's heart because for a brief moment there, he thought that maybe they were friends here, not coworkers. And his naive, little heart told him that they were conversing like a family. How stupid was he, really, to believe in such juvenile things when nothing but "family" had let him down his entire life. "If we had made it a big deal you would have been fired on the spot and Strauss would have known immediately. We thought keeping everything on the down-low would help you."

"But that's just the thing!" Spencer teeters his back over the railing. Penelope's gasp nearly sends him over the edge. "It was a big deal! It should have been dealt with as if it were a big deal!"

"Spence," JJ, who should be in bed with her with husband and child, begins to cry. "We were just looking out for your job-"

"I rather lose my job than die. And let me tell you, I got pretty close."

You went to far, his mind supplies solemnly. You told them to much. Now they think you're nothing but an insane, suicidal, freak-show. Way to go, genius. Blaming them for your addiction. That's just like you, though, isn't it? You blame your father for your mother going off the deep end, Tobias for being Gideon's last straw, your bullies for making you hate your life and your mother for depriving you as a child. In reality, it was all you. They had a reason to leave, to beat you, to hate you.

"I was always the common denominator," Spencer whispers to himself with tearful eyes. "I did this to myself."

"Did what to yourself?" JJ whispers and Spencer can hardly hear her over the roar of thunder and incoming rain pelting against his fragile skin. Calling to him- jump, Spencer, please.

"Everything. I'm sorry, you know. I don't want to leave you all but I can't-... I just can't do it any longer. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to think. Every time I see you all, I get this heavy feeling in my gut that makes me want to die. But, when I'm by myself, it's still there. I-I don't know what to do. I want to die but I don't want to-... I want to die," He doesn't wait for the answer. If there even was one, he didn't hear it. The ground was reaching out for him with begging arms. "I'm sorry."

_How could I have ever even thought to blame you all when the evidence was so clearly presented? It was me the whole time._

He leans forward, feels his feet raise of the ground as a weightless sentiment takes over him, drowning him in dense air and dragging him to the lowest depths of nothingness. Open space among a forest of burning trees.

And in that moment, he feels nothing but the rain trickling down his nose and the luminous glow of the stars gleaming down at him with buggy eyes. He knows somewhere, a child is stepping on a bug as if it's life meant nothing more than a pebble, and in the deep crevices of a local cafe, that too-thin girl is eating a blueberry bagel for first time in three years because she didn't like the way her teeth began to rot and her hair had nearly all fallen out. She even added cream cheese, because her blackening fingernails were sickening to look at. Somewhere, the sun is showing its face and someone is looking up at it, not at all bothered by it's yellow rays striking down at them. In a far off place, a bird's broken wings are being mended by someone who cared enough to stop when they heard it's helpless chirps.

But not here.

Spencer knows somewhere- anywhere- a mother is planting flowers with her son and a father is kissing his child goodnight. Saying he loved them, and meaning it. But Spencer still falls.

It all started with a sick feeling in his gut that morning that told him today was the day.

He tells himself not to leave his apartment, because if he did, he'd meet someone else's gaze and it would suck him in like a black hole when they bend light. And in that moment would come the realization of what he was leaving behind- his family. The only people who gave him a chance at truly living, not just existing. The people that sacrificed so club just to see him smile. If he saw any of them- if he met their eyes- the guilt would eat him alive from the inside out and smother him. Then, he'd back down and go to bed to live another day. So, that morning, he woke up and told himself not to open that front door.

And when he looked up into those stars, fleeting, cutting through the air and into nothingness, he prays that the others aren't as ephemeral. As he falls, gravity- ironically- faded away and he never once hits the ground. The same feeling in his gut settles. A high in his veins rushes.

All to soon, he will fall into something much larger than himself. Lost, with no direction or hope. But, it has to be better than the life he was living now, right?

He wonders what it feels like to die.

Spencer does not believe in God, but he still thinks about what will happen if he lands on the concrete, and when he opens his eyes, he is met with the bright light they always describe in movies. And in the center, will be God, staring down at him with this gentle expression in which he cannot describe. He wants to see God, just once. He wants to know what it's like to be swaddled up in his arms and held as if he were the most precious piece of life in the entire universe. He wants to know what God feels like. Spencer fears that may never happen, if he hits the concrete. He liked to think that an angel of some sort would guild him, but he wasn't sure.

The man thinks that if the Bible reins true, Eve would have detested being made from Adam's rib. Perhaps she didn't even know where she originated from, but a distant thought tells him she wouldn't have like to have known she was made in a man's image. And yet, her hatred must not run that deep, for he knows if she felt such a feeling, the idea of Adam's hand not in her own was sickening.

Eve must have been at her limit, at one point or another, for her to do what she did.

Spencer knows he's already passed his own.

He has crossed a line he never drew, which left him screaming out into an echoing cave with no resolution in sight. Just him and his booming voice too quiet to make it to the entrance. Alone.

So, he falls and is left wondering if anything he ever thought was true.

Was death something he wanted? Was the pain truly too much to give up his entire life over? Was going into the unknown worth it? Was leaving his family and friends to stare at an empty desk fair? Was leaving his apartment empty and cold for the rest of forever okay? Did it matter if he still hadn't been able to find himself despite being in his late twenties? Was it okay to die not knowing your purpose in life? Did leaving his mother make him a had son? Would his father care? Would anyone care?

And so he is left wondering if anything made sense anymore, as he fell to his death.

A raindrop made its way into the gel of his eyeball, seeping into the organ and forcing him to close it. Together. Finally, they were one.

When he hits the concrete, there was a split-second of pain before an overwhelming out of darkness overcame him. He sat for a moment, a warm numbness taking over his limbs and leaving his insides feeling mushy and disconnected. The cold pin-pricks of rain drops were the only thing he could sense as he opened his eyes and was met with the vision of the alley way he collapsed in, the rain puddling beneath his head and submerging half his face. The vague sounds of voices screaming let his ears, and yet he couldn't bring himself to focus on them. No. Because it was just him, the rain, and the concrete. His blood mingled with the water, which embedded itself into the concrete, forming one mass of jutting bones, peeled flesh and tangled limbs.

There was no white light this time. Not like how it was when he died with Tobias. This was different.

This was a slow decent into darkness, the vague feeling of dirt in his mouth and blood leaking from his head and various other parts of his body keeping him from acknowledging his death. No, he was still alive, for now. His gaze kept straight, even as the voices grew louder.

The last thing he heard before slipping into darkness was the empty sound of sirens.

There were no angels to greet him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, now I can finally sleep! I’ve been waiting to post this because something about this series felt so unfinished from me. Maybe it’s because I had so much fun writing it that ending it seemed strange. I may even add a few more stories to add to the series, perhaps some comfort and recovery, but we’ll see. I’m working on a few other projects and I’m still in school at the moment. Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed and that you for all the love and support on this series! It means the world to me and you are all always so kind, it’s astounding. I’ve never met people so amazing before. So, thank you for simply being you. I love you all more than life itself. 
> 
> I love you all so much. Thank you from the bottom of my heart- Lara -<3
> 
> PS: Follow me on Twitter @RisingAnarchy20 for updates, snippets and more fun stuff :)

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote both of these chapters on the same night, but I’ve also been working on some new content. A multi-chapter story that won’t be as... cryptic? As this story. More details on the End Note on the next chapter. 
> 
> I want to thank you all for the overwhelming support on this series. I was incredibly nervous to post it, but I’ve been showed nothing but love and support from all of you and I’m beyond thankful. You should all be proud of yourselves, for you are all literal angels. You have no limit to the kind words you all offer me, and that is insane to me. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I love you all more than coffee-flavored ice cream (and that’s saying a lot!!!)
> 
> Feel free to comment, leave kudos and save for later, lots of love- Lara <3


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